Chinese New Year Craft (Handprint dragon puppet)

I was flicking trhough my NEW Planet Cupcakes book that I got for christmas and saw this gorgeous dragon cupcakes.  Is so beautiful, I love the colours and the details HOWEVER I am not trying to recreate it anytime soon : )  But, it did gave me an idea for the kids chinese new year craft.  So here we are dragon puppet by Stella and Jake.

By the way, the weather has been so hot and humid here in Perth.  That’s why you see the kids wearing minimal clothes and sweating a whole lot.  A simple act of colouring can really work a sweat!

What you need

Cardboard (for the body and claw)

Lots of different colour paper

Glue stick

Colour pencil

Masking tape

Gliter

Popsicle stick



Start by drawing the head and tail of the dragon, I copied the one from the Planet Cupcake book and draw them freehand. 

Get the kids to colour the head and the tail, then add some glitter to make it even more festive.

While the kids are colouring, draw the dragon body and claw on the cardboard like this:   (It look more like a decapitated lizard at this time, but bare with me the end result is spectacular!)

Next step is to trace your child’s hand on a piece of cardboard and cut them out to make the ‘hand template’.

As for Jake, I traced and cut all his hand print by using the template.  While Stella on the other hand traced and cut all her own hand print.  Once you have enough of the colourful hand print (we did about 8 – 10) , start glueing the hand print onto the dragon body.  Work backward from the tail to the head.

Once you have the body ready, cut the head and tail and glue them in place.  Glue the dragon claws and stick the popsicle stick with a masking tape. 

Ta da!  A beautiful, colourful dragon puppet perfect for chinese new year!  I must say I really want to do one as well!  All you need now is some “Tong toroooong tong qiang…!!”

Stella and Jake were so happy and proud of their dragon puppets.  Jake can’t stop dancing… so I thought I’ll show you some of the pictures.

So… HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

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